-I Haven’t Finished the Book Yet, but I’ve Already Started Seeing Differently
I haven’t finished this book. In fact, I’ve only read a few chapters.
But I keep closing it-not because it’s confusing,
but because my thoughts keep running ahead of the pages.
The English edition is titled Think Clearly:Eight Simple Rules to Succeed in the Data Age by Kiko Llaneras. The author’s focus is decision-making in a world overloaded with information
-how cognitive biases distort judgement,
-how intuition often misleads us,
-and how clearer thinking begins by questioning our automatic assumptions.
What I’m about to write may not be exactly what the author intended.
But as I read, I couldn’t help translating his ideas into a very different context : parenting. Not because the book is about children, but because the way we judge people-especially children-often reveals how unexamined out thinking really is.
Early in the book, the author suggests that many judgments we believe are “objective” are actually built on unchecked intuition. We see something, label it quickly, and mistake that first interpretation for reality.
I put the book down-and immediately thought of a child.
When people looked at my own child, they often described him with one word: slow.
But I never felt that slowness was the essence of what was happening.
So I didn’t try to make him faster. I didn’t push speed or efficiency.
Instead, I kept wondering whether something wasn’t being transmitted properly-as if certain signals in his brain weren’t fully connecting yet. To me, his slowness felt less like a lack of ability and more like a difference in processing.
That thought existed long before I opened this book.
But reading Think Clearly helped me recognize something important:
I hadn’t simply followed intuition.
I had changed the starting point of my interpretation.